Wednesday, 8 September 2010

Exclusive: New Eastwood Book on the way!

I had a wonderful email arrive today from author Kevin Avery
who expressed how much he enjoys The Clint Eastwood Archive. Reading on, Kevin
explained about his new book, Conversations with Clint – 1979 to 1983: Paul
Nelson’s Lost Interviews with Clint Eastwood.

I have posted the background information below. It certainly
sounds like being a fascinating read.

Continuum Books will be publishing my second book,
Conversations with Clint – 1979 to 1983: Paul Nelson’s Lost Interviews with
Clint Eastwood.

A little background:

In 1979, critic and records review editor Paul Nelson
convinced his higher-ups at Rolling Stone magazine that a cover story about
Clint Eastwood was in order. A devout genre film and literature fan, Paul
idolized Eastwood, who for him was, among other things, a handy and accurate
cultural reference point. Reviewing a live performance by rock & roller
Warren Zevon in 1976, Paul had written that “seeing the man onstage was like
experiencing... Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry... at a very impressionable age.
Rightly or wrongly, your life got changed.”

Paul embarked on what at the time, according to critic Dave
Marsh, was “probably the longest series of interviews Clint Eastwood's ever
done with anyone,” occurring off and on until 1983. Much to Paul's pleasure, he
and Eastwood hit it off. The actor-director seemed to trust him and enjoyed
spending time with him, and provided him with a wealth of material.

Still acting in other people’s films, the most bankable star
in the world was honing his directorial craft on a series of inexpensive films
that, without fail, he brought in under-budget and ahead of schedule. Operating
largely beneath the critical radar (he took the critics even less seriously
than they took him), he made his movies swiftly and inexpensively. Few of his
critics then could have predicted—nor would they most likely have gone on
record if they had—that Eastwood the actor and director would ever be taken as
seriously as he is today.

But Paul Nelson did.

Unfortunately, for reasons explored in the chapter of
Everything Is an Afterthought that is devoted to his relationship with
Eastwood, Paul—despite the almost twenty-two hours he'd recorded with Eastwood
and another ten with his friends and associates—was unable to get beyond page
four of the article he'd set out to write.

For over twenty years, the whereabouts of Paul Nelson’s
legendary “lost” interviews with Clint Eastwood have been talked about by
Eastwood and Nelson fans alike with the same holy-grail hopefulness that
cinephiles used to invest in the directors’ cuts of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil
or Sam Fuller’s The Big Red One. The tapes were discovered in Paul's apartment
following his death in 2006.

The recordings reveal that Eastwood was indeed relaxed and
confidential with Paul, speaking openly and without illusions about his
influences, his strengths, and his public persona. Aside from their obvious
value as a window into the life of one of our major actors and directors at a
specific time and place in his career, they reveal a man who’d found a friend
in his interviewer and who gave him the benefit of the doubt again and again
over a four-year period because he liked him and believed in him.

The publication of Conversations with Clint – 1979 to 1983:
Paul Nelson’s Lost Interviews with Clint Eastwood will finally bear out that
belief.

Kindest regards, Kevin Avery

Kevin added that the publication date will be approximately
one year from now, but he will be keeping The Clint Eastwood Archive right up
to date with any developments. Thank you Kevin.